Founded in 1926 by John McClure, Pelican's early history was tied to
William Faulkner. Its roots were in the Pelican Bookshop on
Royal Street, a hangout for New Orleans' literary circle of the time, which included Faulkner,
Sherwood Anderson,
Caroline Durieux,
Grace King, and
Lyle Saxon. Its first release was
Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles: A Gallery of Contemporary New Orleans, a book of illustrations by William Spratling with captions and a foreword by Faulkner. Spratling and Faulkner were roommates in a building just off
Jackson Square. The book was a play on the Mexican cartoonist
Miguel Covarrubias'
The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans, published the previous year; just as the
Prince of Wales was not an American,
Sherwood Anderson was not a
Creole.
Stuart Omer Landry period In early 1927, Pelican was acquired by Stuart Omer Landry, who owned the publisher until his death in 1966. Landry, who was born on his father's Alma plantation near
Thibodaux, worked in advertising and was a founding board member of the
Metairie Park Country Day School. Landry was anti-
New Deal and a racial conservative, and under him, Pelican published many books advocating
white supremacist and
segregationist positions, including his own
The Cult of Equality: A Study of the Race Problem (1945),
The Battle of Liberty Place: The Overthrow of Carpet-bag Rule in New Orleans, September 14, 1874 (1955) (a defense of the
White League and the
Ku Klux Klan), and
Rebuilding the Tower of Babel: A Study of Christianity and Segregation (1957). The African-American newspaper the
California Eagle called Landry "an old-line Southerner of the traditional Keep-the-Negro-in-Place School." Landry also published the first edition of the
Louisiana Almanac in 1949. Historian Lawrence N. Powell described Landry's
Battle of Liberty Place as "propaganda, using history to defend segregation and a racial status quo."
Sales to Hodding Carter and to the Calhouns After Landry's death, Pelican was bought in 1967 by
Hodding Carter, the
Pulitzer Prize-winning progressive journalist. He renamed the publisher to Pelican Publishing House, but his ownership lasted only three years. In 1970, Carter sold Pelican to brothers Milburn and James L. Calhoun, natives of
West Monroe in north Louisiana. Milburn, who became Pelican's publisher and president, was a physician in New Orleans; James, who would be Pelican's senior editor, did public relations work for
Louisiana State University. The brothers already owned a similar publisher, Bayou Books of New Orleans. The brothers were, like Landry, conservative; among the first books issued under their ownership was
The Real Spiro Agnew: Commonsense Quotations of a Household Word, edited by James Calhoun. By 1998, the headquarters was in suburban
Gretna, where a 1998 fire at the publisher's offices and warehouse did an estimated $2 million in damage.
The Calhoun Era Along with works of local history and other mainstream nonfiction, the Calhouns also turned Pelican into what has been called "the central publishing house of the
Neo-Confederate movement," including books that helped "found the modern neo-Confederate movement." Among the titles it published were
Was Jefferson Davis Right?, and other similar work. These books argue that "the Confederacy was the true moral victor in the Civil War...the Civil War was not fought over slavery," and "that the South should separate from the North all over again and form its own country." In a 2001 interview with the local weekly
Gambit, Milburn Calhoun endorsed secession from the United States ("Oh, we would be much better off that way"), said Southern slaveowners "took care of our slaves because they had value," and that "Racism is not hate based on skin color...There are people who devoutly hate Southerners. That’s racism. The most widespread hatred of today is against practicing Christians." The neo-Confederate books Pelican published were consistently among its biggest sellers. James L. Calhoun died in 2019. During their ownership, Pelican's catalog had grown from 22 books to more than 2,000.
Acquisition by Arcadia Publishing In 2019,
Arcadia Publishing bought a majority interest in the company, bringing a majority of Pelican's past titles into their distribution, with notable exceptions for polemic and politically commentative titles released during the Calhoun Era. Pelican Publishing Company, still owned by the family of Nettleton (who died in 2021), retains rights on the aforementioned titles not included in the sale of the company. In 2020, Arcadia Publishing acquired River Road Press, another publisher of books about New Orleans, Louisiana, and the surrounding region. Scott Campbell, River Road's founder, was named publisher of Pelican Publishing and the two company's catalogs were merged. For a period beginning circa 2020, the headquarters was in New Orleans proper. Later that year, it moved to its current location. == Notable Publications ==